The criterion I adopt each time in compiling the best 10 films of the year is the Polish premiere of the picture in cinemas or on a streaming platform in the past 12 months. This is why my list - once again in the TVP Weekly - includes some of the films which appeared in American lists in 2022, while missing are movies shown at festivals (also in Poland), but which did not have their official premiere in our country last year.

It's a shame that the release of Martin McDonagh's "The Banshees of Inisherin" has been postponed to January, which would no doubt have radically changed the top three films on my list. It is the best film in the career of the creator of Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Behind Ebbing, Missouri. I already recommend this parable of the Irish soul.

A few of the positions on my list may be surprising, but I emphasise that this is a subjective list of the films that impressed me most in the past year. I have also tried not to repeat similar films on it. That's why Kenneth Branagh's Oscar-winning screenplay and magnificent 'Belfast' is not in the ten. This semi-autobiographical film, which is a love letter to cinema, is too similar to Steven Spielberg's 'The Fabelmans'. Of the two films, it is Spielberg's picture that stole my heart more strongly.

The second ten films would definitely include Giullermo del Toro's visually phenomenal 'Nightmare Alley', and Matt Reeves' 'Batman', which offered a much darker and reflective version of the adventures of the Dark Knight in the DC comics. The director of one of my two favourite films of 2017 ('The Florida Project'), Sean Baker has once again shown himself to be a master of street, independent cinema, in which he portrays with great empathy the lives of outsiders and the socially marginalised. His 'Red Rocket' entertains, touches and absolutely astounds.

Close to Baker's film would be Aleksandra Terpinska's 'Other People'. Dorota Masłowska's scratched-out world and uncompromising strike against the puffed-up liberal elite of the 'Warsaw monde' is one of the most formally daring Polish films of recent years. I also find it hard not to appreciate Jacek Lusinski's 'Śubuk', which fits in with Hollywood's middle-of-the-road cinema. The story of a woman fighting the ossified system for the education of her autistic son is on-screen feminism in the best sense of the word. Małgorzata Gorol creates a sensitive and penetrating role in it.

"Balcony Film" by Pawel Lozinski, on the other hand, is the quintessential genius of one of Poland's most outstanding documentary filmmakers. Simplicity, style, insight - I hope this documentary is not lost in the fight for the Academy Awards. It is close to the top ten.

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"X" by Ti West and "Bodies Bodies Bodies" by Halina Reijn are my two favourite slashers of 2022. "X" is an excellent play on the American Grindhouse sub-genre, while "Bodies..." is a brilliant satire on the lives of Generation Z. What didn't quite work out for Xawery Zulawski in 'Apokawix' in Reijn's case is won 100 per cent.

Very close to the top ten is Celine Sciamma's 'Little Mama'. Charming, enchanting, magical, intelligent and down-to-earth cinema at the same time. My heart was stolen even more strongly by Mike Mils' "C'mon C'mon" with a moving performance by Joaquin Phoenix, who immediately after the dark Joker, stepped into the role of the sensitive uncle looking after his nephew .

'Elvis' by Bazz Luhrman is not just a film about the King. It is a film about Bazz Luhrmann singing 'Love me tender' in his honour. And of the King, of course. This film is a big, fat and collapsing under its own weight (almost like Elvis at the end of his life), a kitsch revue in honour of the cinema of the creator of 'Moulin Rouge', filming Elvis' iconic Vegas performances. I had a great time, but learned little new about the King's demons. Nevertheless, it deserves a second ten.

Like Xavier Giannoli's bravura 'Lost Illusions', which proves that the era of fake news already existed in Balzac's time. I wondered whether to include Agnieszka Smoczyńska's excellent 'Silent Twins' in the top ten. However, the winner of the Golden Lions in Gdynia is arthouse cinema from a drawer that was dug out with a bang, along with Donkey, this year by the master Jerzy Skolimowski. I had to make room for films that moved not only my mind but also my heart.

10. "Jackass Forever", by Jeff Tremaine

Yes, I know it can be shocking to put a film made up of the idiotic and disgusting stunts of a group of guys who revolutionised MTV in 2000. Well, but what can I say, I had to stop the screening several times during this comedy to get a proper laugh. Comedy is supposed to entertain, isn't it? No comedy in 2022 has ever caused me such joy. Joy that is pure, sincere and absolutely childish.

I don't put an artistic equal sign between Buster Keaton's slapstick masterpieces and the work of the guys from Jackass. Nonetheless, they are the ones who rip the joy out of my guts to experience humour based on sheer physicality and, now I'm going to sound like a perfect boomer, pranks. Totally hardcore and vomit-inducing at times, but still pranks.

Returning after 12 years with the fourth film in the series, the men still have the chummy joy of doing wildly crazy things on screen in the name of audience amazement. And yet Johnny Knoxville is already 50 years old. Steve-O, who recently published a book about his addiction, suicide attempts and depression, is a 47-year-old dude. Pop culture's most famous dwarf, the Wee Man, is 48.

The Beastie Boys scream that everyone has the right to party. Well, the Jackass boys more than fulfill this commandment, under the watchful eye of Spike Jonzie (Oscar for "Her"), who produces the best stuff with the Jackass logo. He was, after all, the co-writer of the mockumentary masterpiece "Bad Grandpa" (Knoxville as the perky old man also appears in this film).

One can treat sadomasochistic and absolutely moronic goofing off as the lowest tier of pop culture, but that would be unfair. Maybe in 2000 'Jackass' was bullying like the prophetic 'South Park', but after two decades of progressive silliness culminating in a tangle of obfuscation on TikTok, a tsunami of fake news and the totalitarianism of political correctness, 'Jackass' shows the truth, the essence of male friendship and gives us humour free of pretentious and patently infected ideology.

For two decades, attempts have been made to shove 'Jackass' into various drawers, looking for everything from performance transgression to homoeroticism. This absolutely crazy and free film proves that this is all nonsense. The guys just want to have fun on their terms. They do it sincerely and without the slightest calculation. And they love each other as mates/friends. For this alone they deserve a place in this column.

9. „Everything Everywhere All at Once”, by Daniel Dwan, Daniel Scheinert

It is no secret to any reader or listener of my reviews that I am a great enthusiast of pop-cultural eclecticism. I love cinema made for the love of cinema and unafraid to brazenly juggle its elements. Imagine Rick and Morty moving into 'The Matrix', 'Kill Bill' going on a date with 'Miniari' and everything ending in the spirit of 'Lady Bird'. Such is the film of a directorial duo whose name is Daniel.

It's a frenetic, fresh and perfectly spiced American-Asian cinematic fusion dish. The story of the Wang family, who own a laundromat and have problems with the IRS, turns into a rollercoaster in the multiverse, which is, however, very different from what the Avengers universe offers us today. There, the humour, self-irony or parodic tones have passed the phase of cynicism and are already flying on autopilot. In this film, the humour is completely absurd and meshes well with the visual exuberance.

Nor is it just pure cinematic fun with gorgeous choreography, cinematography and a kung fu cinema vibe with a young Jackie Chan, although it does give the most pleasure. Well, after all, in the lead role we have Michelle Yeoh, known from 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'.

The story of the Wang family, who unexpectedly enter another dimension of reality and whose struggle with the authorities fulfils Mark Twain's saying that taxes are the only sure thing besides death, is also an interesting study of a family assimilating to a foreign culture. On top of this, we have the conflict between a teenage girl rejecting her family's culture and her mother, unable to reconcile her Chinese soul with the American 'dream', quite skilfully sketched.

" Everything Everywhere All at Once " is therefore not only a showy comedy, an Asian kick-ass and a pastiche of superhero cinema, but also works on the level of moral cinema. The plot of a rebellious teenage girl, a laundromat in arrears with its taxes and a giant bagel with sprinkles flying above the ground? Yes, that's how crazy it is!

8. „Boiling Point”, by Philip Barantini

The restaurant as a living organism. It has its own rhythm, choreography and only works when it is a well-oiled machine. The low-budget 'Boiling Point' is a directorial masterpiece. From Hitchcock's 'Rope', to De Palma, Iñárritu and, most recently, Mendes, films shot in 'one take' ritualise us into a world of perfect illusion. Philip Barantini plays out his performance so masterfully that I stopped to wonder where he had to apply a cut. Did he use it? No.

This is indeed the first film ever shot without any cutting. Even if a trick had been employed by the director, however, I would have no complaints. Barantini throws us right into the middle of a festive Friday evening in a trendy London restaurant. This gourmet film-cookie rollercoaster draws you into your seat. It is perfectly spiced.

There's everything here: conflicts at work and in the family. There's British humour and a spoof poked at different social classes. There is mockery of food critics and influencers. There is hierarchy in the kitchen and in the dining room. There is racial and class prejudice. There is a cross-section of society in a small restaurant in 90 minutes, shown to us in real time. Comedy mixes with drama and the kitchen is a real hell. I already understand why you can get a panic attack in it. 

Despite the camera being in constant motion, Barantini manages to sufficiently silhouette the workers, creating a world with precisely separated roles. Finally, there is he - Stephen Graham, who creates another role as expressive and bloodthirsty as the steaks sizzling in the kitchen after the "Time" series. Anthony Bourdain has masterfully described the mysteries of the kitchen, showing what this living, pulsating organism is and why being a Chef is a lifestyle, not a job. Barantini brings the spirit of these stories to the screen.

7. „Crimes of the future”, by David Croneberg

The unsettling Canadian director of "The Fly", "Naked Lunch" or "Eastern Promises" did not return to his favourite "body horror", only to show that he is its true inventor. The eternal outsider and rebel who had such pretentious slip-ups in his career as "Cosmopolis" proved that he can still be a disturbing prophet. After all, it was he who, in "Videodrone" (1983), predicted the literal fusion of humanity with the media. "Crimes of the Future" tells the story of a world where pain has been eliminated. Humanity has drugged itself so much that it has lost the feeling of pain, which has turned into a perverse pleasure and replaced sex.

At the centre is a pair of artist-performers Saul and Caprice (Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux), who perform surgery on Saul's body, which is spontaneously growing new organs in his body, before the eyes of the audience. Not only does Saul not suffer during the procedure, but an orgasmic pleasure is painted on his face.

Already the protagonists of 'Crash' (1996) derived sexual pleasure from the pain experienced during car accidents. In 'Crimes of the Future', the pursuit of pain goes even further. It is meant to remind us of existence. In a bleak, devastated land, people prowl the streets precisely in search of pain. They inflict it on themselves in dark alleys and at exquisite parties. It is a new drug and a new carnal religion.

Of course, Cronenberg provokes with pictorial scenes of bodily mutilation, but it is not an hollow provocation. The Canadian, who has been silent for eight years (his previous film "Maps to the Stars" is one of the sharpest satires on blasé Hollywood), tells us that in a world of nihilism, anaesthesia and the fetishisation of hedonism, we will miss the pain that is, after all, inherent part of life.

An important lesson at a time of widespread addiction to yet more painkillers and opioids that lock us in a narcotic cage instead of liberating us.

6. „Drive my car”, by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

Three hours long, contemplative and highly authentic Japanese 'Drive my car' is ascetic, cool but extremely poignant cinema. Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami from the volume "Men Without Women", "Drive my car" has a perfectly intricate script and meticulous direction. It is no coincidence that it won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film.

Ryūsuke Hamaguchi has made a story of loss, trauma and escape. The escape of two survivors who meet in Hiroshima, a city reborn from the rubble of the apocalypse. Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an actor and director who unexpectedly loses his wife. His personal life, as well as an artistic one, falls apart. Two years after the woman's death, he moves to Hiroshima, where he is to stage Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya". He has been exploiting the Russian writer for years, staging him on the same stage in various dialects and languages (including sign language). This time, he unexpectedly gives up the lead role, casting young TV star Koji (Masaki Okada) in it.

Yusuke suspects that the actor may have had an affair with his wife, unable to play a character that overlaps with his own tragedy. However, he wants to confront the demons that plague him with Chekhov's help.

The second character is his chauffeur Misaki (Toko Miura), who has to drive the red Saab 900 he fetishises, a dozen years old car. The two of them travel through Hiroshima, a city built from the voices of ghosts consumed by the atomic bomb. The car becomes their microcosm, their confessional, their home. Is it also a prison? It is certainly an asylum.

Unraveling the secrets of the two protagonists, who come from such different social classes, is slow and very subtle. Hamaguchi precisely builds the characters' relationships using not only dialogue but also visual symbolism. 'Drive My Car' is thus a film about art not only being an imitation of life, but about art being life itself.

5. „The Lost Daughter”, by Maggie Gyllenhaal

Maggie Gyllenhaal has a very interesting choice of repertoire as an actress. But it turns out that as a director she has an even more intriguing idea for herself. Based on the book by Elena Ferrante, her screenwriting-directing debut is a penetrating cinema about a traumatised woman.

Olivia Coleman has had a streak of great roles in recent years ('The Favourite', 'The Crown', 'The Father') here she creates one of her best. Sam Mendes' very personal 'Empire of Light' will hit screens in 2023, where Coleman goes even further than she did with Gyllenhaal.

"The Lost Daughter" takes place on a Greek island where Leonard Cohen is said to have written his songs in the 1960s. Leda, a Harvard professor of comparative literature, arrives there and stays with the aging hippie Lyle (Ed Harris) who resides there. On the beach, she meets a loud American family and enters into a strange relationship with them that triggers a trauma from her youth. The young Leda is played by the no less excellent Jessie Buckley (both received Academy Award nominations for their roles).

This film is for mature audiences because it touches on a taboo in a mature, multidimensional and very brave way; The Dark Side of Motherhood. It is a story about society's expectation that a woman should always be a mother like from the covers of colour magazines with their landish pictures of a happy family with children.

At the same time, 'The Lost Daughter' is no angry feminist manifesto against motherhood. Gyllenhaal does not take the easy way out. She asks painful and confrontational questions, the answers to which are complex. In doing so, she precisely distributes accents and plays with the symbolism of the "paradise island".

There is a piercing moral drama in this film, as well as elements of a thriller. Here is 'The Lost Daughter', but there are many more people lost here.

4. „The Card Counter”, by Paul Schrader

There is no end to the good directorial streak of one of America's most interesting filmmakers, who - in collaboration with Martin Scorsese - has created such predatory and controversial gems of cinema as 'Taxi Driver', 'Raging Bull', 'The Last Temptation of Christ' and 'The Dark Side of the City', and has himself directed 'American Gigolo' and 'Blue Collar', among others.

After the excellent 2018 "First Reformed", in which he referenced his beloved Robert Bresson, Schrader has given us another moral treatise in which his Christian perception of the world is reflected. Once Calvinist and now Presbyterian.

Will Tell (Oscar Isaac) roams America making money at the poker tables in casinos. Mysterious, withdrawn and closeted, he writes his diary in hotel rooms. First, he wraps each piece of furniture in a white sheet. He celebrates his self-discipline, which helps him at poker, but is also an expression of his spiritual needs.

Tell is a former soldier who was convicted of torturing suspected terrorist prisoners in Abu Gharib. Is he seeking redemption and forgiveness? Hence the need for white robes all around? Or does he not want to leave traces of DNA in the rooms he occupies?

On his journey, he meets Cirk (Tye Sheridan), the son of an army colleague who committed suicide after his experiences in Abu Gharib. Cirk blames the entire American system, personified by a mysterious major (Willem Dafoe), for the breakdown of his family. He craves a bloody vendetta. Will takes him on the road in an attempt to dissuade him from the desire for Old Testament revenge. His redemption is supposed to come through forgiveness. But is it possible in such a corrupt and defiled world?

Paul Schrader takes us on a journey into the 'streets of misery', where morality has been inundated by a puddle of sin. He asks fundamental and very unfashionable questions in a secular world. It is no coincidence that this film is produced by Martin Scorsese, who has returned to Catholic optics in his old age ('Silence', 'The Irishman'). Schrader of the duo has always been more politicised and angry about capitalism. I didn't always agree with him in his political unravelling, but the spirituality of his cinema always attracts me.

3. „Top Gun. Maverick”, by Joseph Kosiński

Nearly one and a half billion in box office receipts and outstanding reviews from even the most fussy critics. It is rare for a gargantuan box office hit to also be an artistic success. Right was Tom Cruise, who for years refused an offer to make a sequel with the late Tony Scott at the helm.

Joseph Kosinski, however, has worthily replaced the master of action cinema from such classics as "True Romance", "Crimson Tide", "The Last Boy Scout" and "Beverly Hills Cop 2". Everything has been written about this film (I've also made a substantial text about it), so I'll paste here what I emotionally threw out on social media minutes after leaving the cinema.

And this is what an excellent sequel looks like! 'Top Gun Maverick' is the best bite of 1980s cinema since 'Creed'. The challenge was similar. "Top Gun" and "Rocky" defined the same decade. Joseph Kosinski worthily replaced maestro Tony Scott, and Tom Cruise perfectly pathetically encapsulates the character of Maverick, struggling with remorse over the death of Goose.

We have a tribute to Iceman (a touching episode of an ailing Val Kilmer who, thanks to the wonders of technology, speaks again) and the passing of the baton to a new generation. A generation with a smartphone in hand and a vision of the old-school heroism of their fathers. The male world is still dripping with testosterone, but female pilots come on board, plus Lady GaGa with a brilliant song, meshed with the familiar and phenomenal soundtrack of the original.

Loud, full of adrenaline and phenomenal sky-high clashes, celebrating male friendship, the new 'Top Gun' is a feast for a kid raised on the cult of that Reagan-era film. Today, the Russians are motherfuckers again, so they've fitted the filmmakers perfectly into the new era. After all, the F-14 is still kicking their ass, right? Go fly to the cinema and let yourself "take your breath away". I stand by my words after a second screening, already in my home cinema.

2. „The Fabelmans”, by Steven Spielberg

Last year, my ranking was won by Paolo Sorrentino's "The Hand of God". It's an autobiographical film about growing up in Naples imbued with the secular deity of Diego Maradona, but it's also the story of a nascent love of cinema. It has become a fashion among filmmakers to tell stories about themselves while paying homage to the X muse. Kenneth Branagh won an Oscar for the similar 'Belfast'.

Also this year, one of the icons of independent cinema, Richard Linkleater, screened 'Apollo 10 ½: A Cosmic Legacy'. Add to this Almodovar ('Pain and Glow') , and in our market Patrick Vega. Quentin Tarantino also showed the Los Angeles of his childhood in his masterpiece "Once upon a time in Hollywood". Sam Mendes, whose "Empire of Light" will not be released in Polish cinemas until March 2023, also combines the story of growing up in 1970s Britain with the magic of traditional cinema.

Steven Spielberg also wanted to tell audiences about what shaped him as a filmmaker, and how his parents' divorce affected him. "The Fabelmans" fully develops what careful observers of Spielberg's cinema have recognised from his earliest films. The break-up of Spielberg's family when he was a teenager is reflected in his most important films - from 'E.T' and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' to 'War of the Worlds'.

Now Spielberg is talking openly about the marriage of his artist mum (Michele Williams) and engineer father (Paul Dano) and their complicated relationship with a family friend (Seth Rogen) who had an affair with his mum. Spielberg (his alter ego Sammy is played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-Deford and Gabriel LaBelle) discovered this while editing a film he shot on a family trip.

Excessive exhibitionism from the three-time Academy Award winner? Spielberg argues that his parents encouraged him to film their story. He draws a picture of 1960s America first in Arizona and then in California, where the Fabelman family moves through his father's work. We see Sammy's first love, the clash with the anti-Semitism (he was the only Jew in school) of his classmates and the fascination of girls.

The most important thread of the film, however, is Spielberg's emerging love of cinema. From an early age, the boy was making amateur films with his friends and increasingly discovered in himself an artistic soul close to his mother. The director shows how his cinematic vision and ingenuity were born, thanks to which he overcame the budgetary constraints of the war films he shot with his friends.

With "Saving Private Ryan" he no longer had limitations, but the ingenuity of the most important shots was born earlier. One can understand why, to this day, he alternates between making magical cinema for mass audiences like "Jurassic Park", "Indiana Jones" or "Player One" and morality plays like "Lincoln", "The Post" or "Schindler's List".

Later Oscar winner for "Saving Private Ryan" and director of "Indiana Jones", from an early age, wanted to make spectacular and grandiose cinema. Eventually he met his idol, the legendary director John Ford, who is phenomenally played by David Lynch himself in an episode in 'The Fabelmans'. It is Ford and Spielberg's crazy grandmother's brother and circus performer Boris (Judd Hirsch) who make Sammy realise the price of artistic genius and entry into the Hollywood 'dream factory'.

'The Fabelmans' is a beautiful story about the love of cinema and discovering the artist within. It is also a story about growing up, parental love and maturing into difficult but necessary existential decisions.

1. „IO”, by Jerzy Skolimowski

I predict that Jerzy Skolimowski will get at least an Academy Award nomination for this film. In the major listings of the year's best films, 'IO' appears in high places, and "The New York Times" even put the film at number one in its ranking.

I have written before that Jerzy Skolimowski made one of the best films about exile and rejection. "Moonlighting" from 1982 won the award for screenplay at Cannes. 40 years later, the Jury Prize at the same festival is won by another Skolimowski film, 'IO'. It too is a film about exile, repulsion and eternal wandering. This time the spurned is not a Polish immigrant unable to return to his homeland because of martial law. Now the exiled one is a donkey who only wants what he himself gives to his guardians. He craves love.

Skolimowski filmed his version of Robert Bresson's "On the Fate of Happiness, Balthazar" (1966). It is not a remake, but an homage to this legendary masterpiece, but at the same time it is also Skolimowski's own distinct and personal voice. Bresson's film is an allegory of a Christian parable. Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska, who co-authored the screenplay, do not shy away from subtle Christian symbolism, but go in a different direction. In both Bresson's and Skolimowski's work, we look at the world from the perspective of creation, which embarks on an odyssey through a broken world.

The Polish director avoids open Christian symbolism. In '11 Minutes', Skolimowski also heavily camouflaged it. Here the cross is hidden on the skin of a Sardinian donkey. This peculiar-looking animal with a black stripe stretching from the top of its head, across its back to its tail, crosses along its front legs. So the IO wears the cross literally on its back. All the way to its Golgotha.

"It's wrong to attribute multiple intentions to this film, because the real one is one: it's an outrage against the destruction of the world. It's my objection to how merciless we are towards animals," - said Skolimowski in an interview I had the honour and pleasure of conducting with him for Interia.pl. The director also told me that 'IO' is the first film of his in which he fully identifies with his protagonist.

Like the great cinematic theologian of nature (his "A Hidden Life" was in my ranking a year ago) Terence Malick, Skolimowski sees in nature and animals the divine element that we murder. However, the Polish filmmaker does not disguise himself as a moralist. He is a pessimistic observer who punctiliously and precisely stigmatises us for our attitude to animals. The donkey's odyssey from Polish to Italian soil shows our worst, but also sometimes generous face.

In every shot, Skolimowski shows that he is still a director who is very comfortable with formal experiments. It is also evident in subsequent shots that the director of 'Scream' is a painter for whom structure, hue and colour saturation are extremely important. Impressive is the use of blue and red filters, which is heightened by Paweł Mykietyn's monumental music. It is astonishing that an 84-year-old veteran of cinema has made such a modern, formally brave and uncompromising film.

This is Skolimowski's first film in which such great empathy and love between the director and his protagonist is evident. It is a love that radiates and is contagious. The first thing I did after returning from the cinema was to give my German Shepherd a tighter hug. Skolimowski may be a pessimist, but the world is a little bit better thanks to his piercingly humane film. For my furry friend - for sure.

– Łukasz Adamski
– translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and journalists